Gymnast Rings on the Cheap

So for a while I've wanted some gymnast rings for doing dips on. They are better than a normal dip station because they require that you use your core muscles to stabalize you as you are doing the dip. Problem is, they start at $70 and go up. Seventy dollars for a friggin' ring? Unh-uh, no way.

I started poking around Home Depot and a couple of area hardware stores when I had a few minutes of free time to see if I couldn't come up with an elegant and wallet-friendly solution. Finally it came to me - PVC. I picked up a 10' piece of 1" Schedule 40 PVC from Home Depot along with miscellaneous and sundry hardware. Recollecting back to my days as a voyeur of many manufacturing processes, I decided that I could bake the PVC in the oven and then mold it around some sort of jig.

I cut a 24" piece and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. The plan was to wrap it around a 10 pound steel weight plate until it had cooled and retained it's shaped. Problem was that as soon as I took it out of the oven and began wrapping it, the PVC began to deform and kink. What to do, what to do?

I went to the local playground late the following evening and filled a couple of 3 gallon jugs with play sand. I thoroughly taped one end of a newly cut 24" piece of PVC, packed it with sand, and then throughly taped the other end. I then popped it in the oven much like I had before and took it out after the 10 minute mark. It formed around the 10 pound weight plate beautifully - no kinks! I then popped it in the freezer for about an hour, took it out, removed the tape and sand, and threaded the nylon and steel ring though as you see pictured. I mounted it to the basement rafter and they work beautifully! Total cost: $7.83.